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The 10 Worst Album Covers of All Time

Chances are, before listening to a song, the first thing you experience is the album artwork. While there have been some iconic and memorable album covers over the years, there have also been a few that missed the mark. Trebel did some digging and came up with a list of the 10 worst album covers of all time. Feel free to look away if you need to. Some of these are pretty bad!

1. Yesterday and Today– The Beatles

Photo provided by wikipedia.com

Probably didn’t expect this from The Beatles right? While this never ended up being the chosen album artwork for Yesterday And Today, it’s worth noting as one of the creepiest and off-putting potential album covers ever. Maybe there’s some symbolism behind it, but it’s hard to get over the decapitated dolls and George Harrison’s creepy smile.

2. Souljaboytellem.com- Soulja Boy

Photo provided by DJbooth.net

This album cover really reflects Soulja Boy’s entire career: cheap, gimmick-y, and just plain bad. This look was cool for about a week among middle schoolers when Soulja Boy’s music was most popular, and even they got over it pretty quickly. Let’s keep this in 2007 please.

3. Let Me Touch Him– The Ministers Quartet

Photo provided by pointsincase.com

Not much explanation needed with this one. If the vision for this album cover was, “let’s take the most unsettling picture to compliment our equally unsettling album title,” then they succeeded!

4. An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down– Rod Stewart

Photo provided by wikipedia.com

Following the creepy/child predator theme, here is a Rod Stewart album cover from 1969. A man in a trench coat with wide-rimmed glasses chasing a small child is never a good idea–it screams illegal. Rod Stewart is lucky he had a successful career after this debut album cover disaster.

5. Narita– Riot

Photo provided by ultimate-guitar.com

Congratulations Riot, you’ve managed to visually produce an image straight out of a nightmare. I didn’t really know what terrifying looked like until I saw this red, monkey-head, sumo man squatting over a collection of skulls. Good luck sleeping tonight.

6. The Life of Pablo– Kanye West

Photo provided by genius.com

Luckily, the musical content of this album makes up for this horrendous cover. Thankfully Kanye has gone entirely electronic and there will most likely be no physical copies of this album cover that we can actually hold. It’s like Kanye gave a 7-year-old a general idea of what he wanted, opened up Microsoft Paint for them and said, “go.” It’s not thought provoking, just weird and random. This is Kanye though…

7. Watching Movies With The Sound Off- Mac Miller

photo provided by rollingstone.com

This album cover from Mac Miller is pretty awful to look at, but it could be easily fixed. Someone just get him a shirt and some pants and this album cover comes right off this list. Thanks but no thanks, Mac!

8. Jesus Use Me- The Faith Tones

photo provided by theguardian.com

Matching big hair and baby slue sweaters is a clear recipe for disaster for The Faith Tones. While this may have flown in the 60’s, today it’s pretty laughable. “Jesus Use Me” has an awful album cover that I really hope that Jesus had nothing to do with.

9. Somethin’ Serious- Big Mike

Big Mike looks really pissed in this picture. I’m wondering if it’s because he saw how badly his creative team had failed him with this album cover. It’s clear that Somethin’ Serious went wrong here.

10. Dirty Work- The Rolling Stones

Photo provided by Rollingstones.com

This one is the most disappointing because it is The Stones. This neon disaster is such an awful representation of this iconic bad. I guess everyone is allowed a slipup every now and then. But this is almost unforgivable.

Think we missed any? Leave a comment below with an album cover you think is bad enough to make this list. Download the Trebel App here and start listening today!

Maddie McDonald is a senior at Temple University in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. When she's not browsing for new music, she's interning at 94.5 PST in Princeton, NJ, drafting up a new tweet, or managing one of her fantasy sports teams.